R&D is an expensive long term business. Done correctly R&D is just as much about developing people as it is about developing technologies or products. It is not possible to ramp up R&D as though it were a production line and it is also not possible to mothball an R&D department  and bring it back on line later.

Although new products may come to the market place quickly in good times and more slowly in bad times, it does not mean that R&D is being treated in the same way. If you take a look at the R&D spending of large companies such as the big chip manufcturers you will see that this is not determined by short term economic or market fluctuations. Governments, or more correctly the politicians who run them, are in for the short haul and hence make terrible mistakes when it comes to influencing R&D.